After Xbox, Microsoft Plans to Bring Kinect to Windows 8. Game On!
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) recently announced the latest version of Windows – Windows 8 and also launched a developer preview of Windows 8. Its last launch, Windows 7, was a huge hit and sold over 500 million licenses worldwide. With Windows 8, Microsoft plans to not only repeat those amazing sales figures, but also capture a significant share of the exploding tablet market, which is current dominated by Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad and tablets powered by Google‘s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android OS. Today, it announced the launch of a beta version of an SDK (software development kit) for the hugely popular Kinect motion gaming add-on for Windows 8. [1] Using this SDK, developers can create applications and games enabling the use of the Kinect add-on in Windows 8.
Check out our complete analysis of Microsoft here
Microsoft is one of the largest enterprise software makers worldwide. It is also a dominant player in the operating system market, with its Windows OS. It competes primarily with Apple’s Mac OS X and the many variants of the open source Linux OS, but stands far ahead of either of them when it comes to market share.
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It is also a major player in the gaming console market with the Xbox 360 console, leading other consoles like Sony’s Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii in terms of sales. The Kinect add-on for the Xbox 360 console, which was launched exactly a year ago, was a huge hit, and had excellent sales. It also boosted sales of the Xbox 360, making it the top gaming console in terms of sales in the past year. We expect it to gain market share in the console market throughout the forecast period.
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With the Windows 8 SDK, Microsoft hopes to take Kinect mainstream, making it accessible to everyone with a PC. Windows 8 is expected to be Microsoft’s biggest launch yet, and Microsoft is sparing no effort to make it the best operating system on both computers and tablets. By making the Kinect compatible with Windows 8, Microsoft will not only boost sales of the Kinect, but also provide consumers with yet another reason to buy Windows 8.
Windows currently accounts for more than 25% of the $32 Trefis price estimate for Microsoft, while Entertainment Devices like the Xbox, Kinect, Windows Phone etc. account for nearly 10%. Our Trefis price estimate stands nearly 15% above its current market price.
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